So you updated to a responsive site. Now you think you’re all set, right?
Nope … it’s just the beginning. Now that you’ve gone responsive (mobile-friendly), do you know how your users are actually using your mobile site? It’s an important thing to know as more and more patients search directly from their mobile device. If those mobile users land on your site and quickly bounce, Google may see this as a sign that your site isn’t optimized for mobile. This could may have a negative impact on your rank on Google, cost you traffic and potentially new patients.
Here are a few tips to consider on how to improve your mobile user’s experience (UX) while on your site.
Think Content First
Bottom line, mobile users are goal-oriented.
Start by looking at the top actions a mobile user is taking on your site. If that action is clicking to call your office or completing your online appointment request form, your mobile site should make it easy for them to complete their action.
How? Make sure those call to actions (CTAs) are high up on your page and stay stationary on top as you scroll down.
Also take a good look at each page. You’ll want to ensure that your content has ample headings that help your mobile user get to the specific information they seek.
Finally, on desktop you may present content in multiple columns, adding patient testimonials, call outs, etc. As you scale down for mobile, this content will stack one on top of the other. It’s important to consider what content is truly needed. Different content may warrant different approaches to layout.
Simplify Your Navigation
Navigation is one of the most challenging aspects of a responsive site, especially when you are dealing with a large site with deep information. It’s important to simplify your navigation, especially on pages that have a high number of mobile users. Focus on creating clear, consistent, user friendly navigation but that is presented based on screen size. This may mean use of a “navigation drawer” or “hamburger menu” on smaller screen sizes.
Improve Layout
Large compelling banner images may be effective at drawing users into your site. However for mobile users, those large banners take up important real estate and can have a negative impact on your page speed. You’ll want to be very selective on the use of imagery on your mobile site. If it doesn’t have help usability and getting the user to desired information, it should be dropped.
For online forms, it’s challenging for mobile users using a touch screen to input information with their fingers. Be generous with button sizes and larger field elements.
Improve Page Speed
Page speed refers to how fast the content on your page loads. It’s one of the signals that Google uses to rank your pages. Page speed is also important to a user’s experience. Why? Pages with a longer load time tend to have a higher bounce rate, lower time on page and a negative impact on conversion.
Ways to increase page speed:
- Optimize and compress your images
- Enable file compression
- Optimize your code (minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML)
- Reduce the number of redirects to other pages
- Leverage browser caching
- Improve your server’s response time
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute the load of delivering content
Wondering how your mobile site stacks up?
Please contact our team. We would be happy to review your site and provide recommendations on how to improve usability for your mobile users.
